Winners of the 2nd LEADER Business Pitch Competition

Restart announced today the winners of a business pitch competition, held in Sarajevo at HUB387. The competition was part of the LEADER Project Entrepreneurial Program, hosted by Restart and facilitated by Ivey Business School.

“Bosnian2Go”, a language program intended for BiH diaspora, won first place. Young people with roots in Bosnia and Herzegovina face the problem of insufficient knowledge of their native language. “Bosnian2Go” wishes to facilitate the process of learning about the Bosnian language for those who are members of BiH’s international diaspora community.

“First Public Interest Law Firm” took second place in the business pitch competition, while two projects, “Bosnian Food Export” and “PosaoMobile” won third place.

The second annual 2018 Leader Training was attended by 43 candidates from all across Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Banja Luka, Sarajevo, Mostar, Travnik, Zenica, Tešanj, Srebrenik, Doboj, and Gračanica.

Today, 31 candidates completed the program, and 27 participants had the opportunity to pitch their ideas in the 2nd LEADER Business Pitch Competition.

LEADER empowers promising entrepreneurs in Bosnia and Herzegovina to learn fundamental business practices through modules that include: Business Plan Development, Opportunity Recognition, Business Strategies, Marketing Strategies and Tactics, Entrepreneurial Finance (Financial Statements, Cash Flow, and Valuation), Operations, Human Resource Management, Communications, and Action Planning. Four Canadian instructors from the Ivey Business School in Toronto conducted the 2018 Leader Training. This training is essential for enhancing BiH citizen’s ability to be competitive in the global market, and actively develops the quality of entrepreneurship in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Restart would like to express its gratitude to all who generously helped to make this event possible, including HUB387, USAID’s Diaspora Invest Project, MarketMakersProject, Samira Nuhanovic-Ribic, and the patrons of the 2018 Leader Training, Mr. Milan Dunović, Vice President of the Federation of BiH, and SEEBA Stockholm.

Restart would also like to thank the Labour and Employment Agency of BiH, the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency in BiH, and the Federal Employment Agency for their incredible support in raising the public’s awareness of the 2018 Leader Training throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.